Tag: roadtrip

Aug 22nd was a holiday on account of Bakrid, and I had been itching to do a ride for a while. I woke up early, got ready to leave by 7, and was out on the road by 7:15 AM. I didn’t have a clear plan in mind. I knew I wanted to check out 3 places if possible – Gaganachukki, Sathegala bridge and T. Narasipura. Barachukki was also on the radar, but I wasn’t sure how crowded it would be. There’s a dargah there and the road could also be closed during Bakrid.

Anyway, the order is for later. I took the ORR to reach Mysore Road, and even that early it was a bad decision. Too many humps and buses make it a stressful ride, and the Metro construction on Mysore Road had also screwed up the roads. The route through Vishweshwaraiah Layout and Kempegowda Layout reaching Mysore Road near Decathlon is the better route now, the only issue being the railway crossing.

There weren’t too many clouds, there wasn’t much of a chance of rain that day, but the weather was chilly for August. I made good speed after crossing NICE road and reached Bidadi well before 8. I finished a quick thatte idli-vada breakfast there and was off by 8 AM. The advantage the bike has is that bad traffic is a lot less stressful and I was turning left after Maddur well before 9 AM. Malavalli was reached in 20 minutes and I turned right after Malavalli’s junction, but just before reaching the junction where the road from Kanakapura reaches Malavalli. I stopped after a few kilometres near a huge lake for a break of 5-10 minutes. This was the Marehalli Kere. The road after this was peaceful with hardly any traffic. There was the odd pothole or patchwork, but bikes register them a lot less than cars, the effort needed to avoid them is much lighter.

Purigali was reached and I took a right onto the Belakavadi-T. Narasipura road towards T Narasipura. This road was pristine with hardly any traffic. I was at Narasipura before 10, which felt like a good deal, and I hadn’t rushed either. I went down to the Agastheshwara Temple, which looked really old, but was closed. There was a path leading behind it which took me to some steps and down those steps was the river. In fact, there were two rivers – the Kaveri and the Kabini – merging into one. The name T Narasipura expands to Thirumakudalu Narasipura. The Thirumakudalu is from Sanskrit – Trimakuta. There are apparently three rivers having a confluence here – the Kaveri, the Kabini and a third, a lake called Spatika, which is considered mythical or might have existed in earlier times.

Some of the lower steps were slushy suggesting that the water level was much higher the past few days. They had apparently reduced the flow a tad from that day. There were a couple of men bathing, and I had to wait for them to finish before trying to do videos. Keeping the blog family friendly.

Kabini coming in from my right, then I pan to the joined rivers and pan to my left where the Kaveri is flowing from.

One of the things I like about twitter is that it brings obscure places that are right there in your backyard to your notice. Among the places that have been put on my list are the Lepakshi temple and Hosaholalu. While checking on Hosaholalu I also came across a couple of Hoysala temples near Kikkeri. Given this, and being a big fan of the region around Shravanabelagola-Belur-Halebid, it wasn’t too long before I planned a bike ride to Kikkeri and Hosaholalu.

The plan was to leave early in the morning by 7:30 and get back by 4-ish. Trouble with this region is that you need to get most things done between breakfast and lunch due to the lack of good food options there. This usually means that you’re always home by 4 or 4:30 PM. Anand, as always, signed up to the plan and we set the date for Sunday, 26th April. By Saturday evening, thanks to the rains every evening and feeling guilty about the general lack of usage on the car, I suggested driving down in my car. It had done around 900 Kms in the last 4 months, and I really wanted to put some usage on it. Of course, it also ensured calmer minds and less resistance at both homes.

I left promptly after 7 and was at Anand’s place by 7:15. After saying hello to his 2mo sleeping nephews, we left at close to 7:30 AM. The NICE road was discussed and decided against and the normal ORR-Tumkur road was chosen. Helps that I like driving so close to the Metro line on Tumkur Road. The first change I noticed from the usual bike rides was the need to stand in long queues at toll booths. You also have to deal with assorted vendors(much smaller problem) and eunuchs(bigger problem). The toll booths were done with, the left taken at Nelamangala and we were promptly on our way, buying a 2-way ticket only near Yediyur as the plan was to return via Nagamangala and Magadi, hitting the Highway only near Bellur Cross for lunch.

Breakfast was had at the ever-reliable and every-time-more-expensive Swati Delicacy right after Kunigal. We reached Shravanabelagola before 10 and had found the road to Kikkeri soon after. Now, this was the tricky part as we didn’t know how good the road would be. Turned out that it was wide enough for 2 vehicles with a nice black finish. So we happily cruised the 13 Kms to get to Kikkeri. Google maps and a couple of questions to locals helped us get to the Brahmeshwara temple which was nestled away behind a nice village with houses that have wooden pillars and the sitting platform in front.